Democrazy is indeed a flawed system and IMO absolutely anti-islamic. There are no confusion here if one talks about the original meaning of democrazy (which is rule of the people & sovereignty lies with the people AKA absolute kufr).Under a democrazy you actually have to give absolute individual freedom (liberalism) to the people and lawmakers would have the power to adopt and reject laws. This is absolutely kufr and anti-islamic.
BUT lets NOT confuse democrazy with electocracy (people just electing leaders ). Democracy is NOT just elections but carries a lot of western secular ideological baggage and that's why even Pakistan , Turkey , Tunisia are rated as semi-autocratic by the western think tanks , because for them you are NOT truly democratic unless you accept liberal ideas about society , trade , governance and embrace individualism and ditch Islam. Infact they pointed it out to the MB after arab spring that - "
don't think democracy is just elections and we accept something more" .
Given the current international circumstances (nations states , no monarchy , diverse polity etc etc ) , electrocracy is however , something neutral and can be looked into by the muslim world IMO.
Now the problem starts - the model of elections. Pakistan follows the first pass the post system AKA tyranny of the majority system. Here some one with 20% votes takes the whole constituency based on plurality of votes and this results in parties having mere 30% votes ruling over rest 70% for 5 years.
You PML-N actually won 32 % of the votes but ended up with 50% seats and before your PPP won 30% votes but ended up with majority seats. There is NO fair proportionality here and this gives rise to political instability in developing countries. PAK is not UK and should NOT be. Infact its only UK , and US and India that follow this flawed electoral system.
Super popular 56 chest Modi has actually won 31% of the national votes while unpopular congress won 20% but look at the difference in their seats - BJP won 250 + more seats than congress.
Most western developed countries follow some form of proportional representation system where parties roughly get seats proportional to their votes :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
Tunisia , Turkey and Indonesia also follow this sytem. Nepal and SL just endorsed it as well.
NO comptemporary political parties enjoy 50% + support in reality except..............wait for it ............Turkey's AKP. This party is an anomaly in global electoral politics IMO and indeed is genuinely popular. NO western or eastern leader come close to erdogan's popularity. Erdogan has maintained 50% + support over 15 years via a proportional representation system.
If Erdogan contested under UK/pakistani/Indian model he would have maintained a 3/4 majority in parliament for 15 years.
So pakistanis should think about this electoral reform to bring stability and accountability to their system. The best about this model is that it forces power sharing via coalitions since its very hard for a single party to gain absolute majority.
It also reduces effects of possible rigging. I think your Imran khan would have less to comlpain about in such a system and can even get a shot at PM seat with help of smaller parties while your nawaz sharif won't get away with unchecked majority everytime . Also it may enhance legitimacy of civilian gov and army would have less chance or inclination to intervene.
P.S - another amusing fact : Awami league at the zenith of its popularity won 39% of votes in 1970 election but ended up with 160 of the 162 seats. Imagine that 60% did NOT vote the AL.. Official turnout was 62%. This 39% (all in E.Pakistan) actually dictated politics of 1971.
@litman @Apprentice @war&peace @dsr478 @Psychic @That Guy @Horus
Btw personally I am absolutely against the concept of democracy which is absolute kufr for the reasons I mentioned above. But I distinguish between democracy and electocracy.